The Planets: Mercury

by Dana Gerhardt

I've learned to be both reverent and suspicious of Mercury. As the planet
of language, Mercury is both a Magician and a Trickster. There's magic
in Mercury's words. Through prayer and sacred mantras, words link us to the
gods; through the power of naming, words encourage our mastery over chaos;
through language, we communicate with others; we invent, build, change
minds,
and reshape our world. Through the power of words we may sometimes forget
who we are, and think of ourselves as gods. Of course we're not.
And that's why Mercury is a Trickster, blithely placing banana peels under
our feet when we're not looking. Mercury sneaks words into our mouths that
derail and humble us, reminding us that at one time or another, everyone
will play the fool. This is why we adore celebrity scandals-they take the
spotlight off our own clown suit.

When a celebrity falls, astrology usually points to a transit from some
heavy planet like Pluto. But often as not Mercury is a co-conspirator, giggling
in the wings. Pluto transits can unmask a celebrity's shadow, but words typically
detonate the scandal. When Mel Gibson's reputation tumbled after his anti-Semitic
tirade during a drunk driving arrest, by transit, Pluto was squaring his
Pisces Midheaven-a fitting transit for one's public image self-destructing.
[1] Yet given the nature of the crime, we should also look at Mercury.

Gibson's Mercury is in ambitious, shrewd and generally conservative Capricorn;
it's opposed by an iconoclastic, eccentric, even arrogant Uranus; it's squared
by an artistic, spiritually inclined, if not alcoholic Neptune. Two years
earlier, this Mercury combo was the Magician behind the enormously successful "The
Passion of Christ." Written and directed by Gibson, the film was inspired
by his deep Catholic faith and devotion to God (Neptune). It was strict and
fundamentalist in its view (Capricorn), also controversial and ingeniously
attuned to the collective (Uranus), resulting in a huge box office success.
Thanks to his Mercury magic, Forbes named Gibson the most powerful celebrity
in the world. But two years later, on a dark Malibu road, the Trickster Mercury
stumbled out of Mel's car. Drunk (Neptune), arrogant (Uranus), and dogmatic
(Capricorn), the genius became a clown.

James Frey must have felt touched by Zeus when Oprah Winfrey selected his
memoir, A Million Little Pieces, for her book club; she introduced
him as "the man who kept me up all night." The book was so riveting she couldn't
put it down, and so ruthlessly honest, Oprah knew it would help many people.
And why not? Frey may have been a drug addict, alcoholic, and convicted criminal,
but his Mercury conjunction to Jupiter implies he might indeed gain respect
and recognition, and have a powerful influence with his words. [2] The two
planets being in Libra suggest literary flair and artistic accomplishment,
as well as the desire to be popular and accepted. Frey also has a Mars/Pluto
square in his chart, indicating a dark side which Frey acknowledged on Oprah's
show. "I was a bad guy," he told her. "If I was gonna write
a book that was true, and I was gonna write a book that was honest, then
I was gonna have to write about myself in very, very negative ways."

A Million Little Pieces soared to the top of the NY Times Bestseller
list. But months later, when Pluto transited Frey's natal Mars/Pluto square,
it was reported that a number of Frey's "true" stories were sheer fabrications.
Oprah called Frey back on her show for an uncomfortable public punishing.
We could say his Pluto transit was to blame. But who was the scribe, with
beautiful pen in hand, egging on Frey's Mars/Pluto aspect, inflating and
exaggerating its darkness? Mercury/Jupiter likes to make things bigger, although
it's not by nature a liar. In fact, as Frey noted, Jupiter charged his Mercury,
morally and ethically, to say what's true. It's just that with Jupiter, what's
true isn't necessarily the same as what literally happened.

In myth, Mercury (or Hermes as he was known to the Greeks) had the power
to appease the gods and make them laugh; he could transport souls to and
from the underworld; he also lied, stole, and gossiped. Mercury's counterparts
in various cultures-the Nordic Loki, the Native American Coyote, the Eskimo
Raven-share his magician/trickster duality, suggesting that around the world
and throughout the ages, it was understood that our thoughts are slippery.
They can deliver genius or take us down.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney was Georgia's first African-American congresswoman,
an accomplishment no doubt aided by her Aquarius Mercury opposite Pluto.[3]
This placement blesses her with a quick, progressive mind, and a willingness
to fight against prevailing power structures. A Mercury/Pluto combination
is often spoiling for a fight. When Pluto transited her Pisces Sun, McKinny
gained national attention for scuffling with a congressional security guard.
Indignant, she claimed he stopped her because of racial stereotyping, although
news reports confirmed she simply wasn't wearing the required security badge.
McKinney became a media joke and lost her next election. It wasn't the first
time her Mercury had gotten her into trouble. Mercury/Pluto types may be
drawn to secret, conspiratorial, even dangerous information. In one campaign,
McKinney asserted that President Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks
and did nothing to stop them. That lost her another election. Even so, Mercury/Pluto
is not a quitter. McKinney came back and won a subsequent race. Perhaps she'll
do so again.

The year I started giving astrology readings, one of my teachers suggested
a clever technique for establishing rapport: "If you want your clients
to really hear you, look at the placement of their Mercury, then talk to
them in that style." From what I could tell, my teacher always spoke
the same way. Although her idea sounded good, and quite worthy of mimetic
Mercury, I was clueless about how to apply it. How should I adjust my sentences
to reach a Mercury in Taurus in the 7th house square Mars? Or a Sagittarius
Mercury in the 2nd inconjunct Saturn? It boggled my mind. In that nervous
blur of early readings, my fantasies of a Mercury shortcut to success quickly
swirled into the background.

Mercury
is the planet of communication, and more broadly, it rules connections of
all kinds. It governs the social commerce of buying and selling, and in
a horary chart can indicate merchants, contracts, bills of sale, and correspondence.
Too, it rules the body's internal communication system, its network of nerves;
if afflicted or unduly emphasized, it can indicate a hyper-active nervous
system. Hands are also Mercury-ruled; a strong Mercury might imply manual
dexterity, an aptitude for craftsmanship, or skill in handling machinery.
But primarily Mercury's position suggests one's approach to connecting, in
particular, how the mind likes to receive and give information. It's said
that Mercury's sign shows how one thinks and its house what one thinks about.
Yet over the years I've become less comfortable with such generalizations.
Often enough, winged Mercury unravels the simple formulas."

It's been about sixteen years since I became an astrologer. I can now look
at a person's chart and hazard a healthy guess about how well we'll communicate,
whether we'll chat like friends, have more to talk about than one session
can cover, or whether there will be resistance and long silences. But usually
it's not the Mercury placement that tells me this. In fact, as I prepare
for readings, rarely does Mercury stand up and say (as other planets often
do), "Look at me, I'm going to be important in this reading." Of course without
Mercury there would be no reading, but in the moment, in the midst of the
action, its features often disappear. Now you see it, now you don't-which
is much like the astronomical Mercury. Because of its proximity to the Sun,
the planet is only visible at dawn or dusk, appearing for shorter intervals
than other planets. The same is true of the astrological Mercury. Its sign,
house, and aspects, while significant to one's make-up, are not consistently
visible.

In The Inner Planets, Howard Sasportas tells a delightful story
of a Mercury seminar, during which he gave an exercise to the audience, after
first dividing them into groups according to their Mercury sign.[4] Predictably,
the Mercury in Aries group finished first, while the Taurus group needed
more time. The Geminis came up with four times the information of any group.
After completing the exercise, the Cancer group gave each other massages.
There was just one Mercury in Leo, who joined the Aquarius group, and not
surprisingly, given the opposing signs, there was some tension. An argument
broke out in the Mercury in Virgo group; one woman was brought to tears when
the others criticized her views. The Mercury in Libras debated cordially
and completed their list with beautiful penmanship. Sasportas claims he can't
remember what the Scorpios did, perhaps repressing it. The Sagittarius Mercuries
sped through the exercise, then got sidetracked into a philosophical discussion.
The Capricorn Mercuries frequently called Sasportas over to make sure they
were doing things correctly, while the Pisces group had difficulty crystallizing
the attributes of their sign.

If only the Mercury sign were always so apparent! I used to work for a man
with Mercury in Pisces in the 2nd house. We might expect a poetic, spiritually
"out there," intuitive or artistic style with Pisces, an empathetic point
of view, maybe some vagueness or confusion, and possibly a tendency to lie
or whine. But Jim was never like that. Competitive, he was a consummate strategist
and excellent business thinker. When all around him were losing their heads,
he had a remarkable capacity for slowing the panic down and leading everyone,
logically and methodically, out of the crisis. It wasn't until I'd known
him for about a year that I learned of his "secret" life: he and his wife
had a great interest in meditation, chakras, remote viewing and astral travel,
consistent with his Pisces Mercury. The 2nd house is the money house, so
you might expect his mind to be on finances, and actually, he was the company
accountant. But numbers weren't what he talked about with any great interest
or passion. What he really loved, and what he was known for, was telling
long stories-about history, military history in particular, and about people
he'd met and things he'd learned, anywhere from childhood up to last weekend.
My co-workers used to duck into their offices when they saw him coming, knowing
they might be caught for hours.

So given Jim's 2nd house Pisces Mercury, how do we explain his reputation
as a sharp thinker, with a good mind for business, and a mouth that loved
to talk? That's easy. His Ascendant was in strategic, business-oriented Capricorn
and his Sun was in me-me-me Aries in the chatty 3rd house. It's hard, of
course, to isolate any placement in the chart, the Moon as emotions, Venus
as love, the Sun as ego. Where does one planet stop and the others begin?
But Mercury's features may be the most difficult to isolate, because mind
and speech necessarily travel all over the chart. If we couldn't think about
or give voice to all our placements, how limited their expressions would
be!

The
astrological Mercury is much like the mythical Mercury; it's a messenger,
carrying information back and forth between all the gods on Mt. Olympus.
Jungian astrologer Alice O. Howell describes Mercury's role another way: "If
you contemplate one of your sneakers, the eyelet holes would be the planets,
and Mercury would be the shoelace criss-crossing and binding the shoe together." [5]
Mercury carries the other planets' thoughts, dreams, and fears, which is
why its own features often disappear.

Mercury's house position can indicate a special aptitude for matters in
its house, but it's ridiculous to say this house is what most occupies our
thoughts (as some astrology books claim). I used to work with a group of
women who talked about nothing but relationships-getting them, keeping them,
improving them or losing them. Yet none had a Mercury anywhere near the 5th
house of romance or the 7th of relationships. I often have coffee with a
friend whose Mercury is in the 4th house of family. She does occasionally
mention her family, about as much as I do mine. But when her eyes light up
and she leans forward with a really juicy story, or troubled, wants to process
a current dilemma, her fleet-footed Mercury can be anywhere in her chart.

People often call astrologers because they're feeling confused or insecure;
they'd like to know what's going to happen. Hopefully they'll leave their
readings feeling inspired and reassured. Maybe they'll get a great prediction.
More often, they'll get a unique opportunity to examine their own thoughts,
to understand what shaped their thinking, and to acquire new thoughts that
will open more possibilities. I tend to talk a lot about thoughts in my readings,
because nothing has a greater power to create good or crappy futures. A fabulous
transit could be on the horizon, but if the individual has a habit of thinking, "I'll
never amount to anything," any happy prediction will likely fail. That's
why Tarot decks make Mercury's card (The Magician) the first card in the
deck after the receptive Fool: All action tends to flow from our thoughts.

Mythical Mercury is pictured with two sets of wings-one pair on his feet
and another on his crown. This suggests mental flight that goes both up and
down, toward the earth and to the sky. In other words, our thoughts can be
practical and realistic-also divinely imaginative and creative. This duality
is further emphasized by the two signs Mercury rules. Earth-sign Virgo gives
us the capacity to analyze, discriminate, classify and digest our experiences
so we might gain practical mastery over our world. Air-sign Gemini is curious,
flexible, adaptable, and can dive around a subject until it finds the most
advantageous perspective. An astrologer needs both modes. With Virgo, like
an etymologist over a butterfly collection, we pin each symbol down, study
its patterns and infer its action in people's lives. With Gemini, we chase
live butterflies as they dart in and out of view, adjusting and discovering
in the moment. Too much Virgo and we'll actually obscure reality-for real
life is far more dynamic and complex than our attempts to classify it. Too
much Gemini and anything might be true depending on the day we think it.
A good astrologer will keep both Mercury styles in balance, which also means
keeping a sense of humor and humility about one's work. When a reading succeeds,
maybe we can credit the precision of our analysis, or perhaps it's simply
that our own ideas got out of the way, and like magic, Mercury flew in with
just the right message.

I never figured out how to speak to people in the style of their Mercury,
but I did once come close. I had recently taken an NLP seminar and learned
about "mirroring," a technique for matching gestures and sentence patterns
to establish rapport. One day I had a job interview. Going in, I felt ridiculously
under-qualified. Then I saw the waiting room. It was filled with applicants
who appeared far more skilled and confident. I abandoned my attempt to get
the job, and decided to practice mirroring instead. This was a good idea,
since the interviewer, a colorful and flamboyant man, spoke for a full fifty-five
minutes of my hour-long interview. There was no opportunity to sell myself
even if I'd wanted to. So I mirrored. I leaned forward when he leaned forward,
folded my hands when he did, synchronized my breathing, and for the five
minutes I did get to speak, I made sure to do so with the same intonation,
pace and dramatic flair that he did. To my surprise, I was called back for
a second interview. This was with an altogether different woman. I sat with
my knees together as she did, spoke slowly and softly, and used corny business
phrases like "climb on board." I was offered the job, but for other
reasons, declined; a year and a half later, they called out of the blue and
offered me the job again.

At the time, I took this as validation of mirroring's power. But the more
I've wondered about the mystery of communication, I keep returning to this
experience. Though a consummate child of Mercury, this was actually my first
introduction to Mercury's powerful twin, the silent one. It occurs to me
now that it's the silent one who actually makes the connection, the one who
listens, not the one who talks. I wasn't merely mimicking, I was listening
intently. I was fully receiving these two individuals, with a minimum of
internal chatter and judgment, which is why, so many years later, I not only
remember them well, I have good feelings about them too.

To increase its capacity to listen, busy Mercury must be willing to slow
down from time to time. And that to me is the primary benefit of Mercury's
notorious retrograde period, the three times a year when Mercury slows and
appears to be moving backward in the sky. [6] Even people who know nothing
about astrology have heard about this time. Communications falter, machines
break down, contracts are suspect, and schedules go awry. Mercury-ruled activities
seem to fail because, during the retrograde, Mercury loses its usual efficiency.
The consummate connector disconnects, which is as healthy for the mind as
dream, though tricky if you're trying to keep a tight schedule or handle
heavy machinery. If you pay attention a week or two before the retrograde,
you can start to feel it when your mind begins drifting away. There's an
invitation here, to release your Mercury burdens and allow your mind to relax
and unwind, like letting the air out of a balloon. Or to use Howell's metaphor,
the retrograde means your shoeslace will be untied for three weeks. If you
insist on running, you just might stumble and fall.

I'm less afraid of Mercury retrogrades than some of my fellow astrologers.
I spent years at a communications-oriented company, a perfect laboratory
for studying Mercury retrogrades. We conducted research studies, writing
questionnaires and presenting reports; this required coordinating thousands
of people in hundreds of projects across the country. What I discovered was
that things got screwed up during the retrograde-and they got screwed up
when Mercury was direct. The flip side was also true: the majority of our
projects went smoothly during the retrograde, as they did the rest of the
year (or we would have gone out of business) Perhaps the only difference
was that during the retrograde we had the planet to blame for our errors
and stress. As much as I wanted to find a clear pattern, I kept observing
that Mercury snafus could occur at any time of the year. That brings us back
to Mercury's two faces-the Magician and the Trickster-and to what years of
Buddhist training have taught me: Just when you think you know what you're
doing, chances are that you don't! Thank goodness Mercury is there when we
fall, helping us to laugh and learn from our mistakes.

Mel Gibson was born January 3, 1956 at 4:45 PM in Peekskill, NY

James
Frey was born September 12, 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio (time not available).

Cynthia McKinny was born March 17, 1955 in Atlanta, Georgia (time
not available).

For more on Mercury retrograde do check out Pythia
Peay's wonderful book, Mercury Retrograde: Its Myth & Meaning,
(Tarcher, 2004).

"Your Venus Unleashed",
report by Dana Gerhardt

See her as you've never seen her before. Acknowledge her whispered
desires and insistent shouts. Follow her trail of clues toward greater
happiness.

Based on extensive research, this beautiful 50-60 page report is
a rich and inspiring analysis of your Venus sign, house, aspects,
her morning or evening star status, her current transits, a lifetime
of progressions, and so much more.